The present invention concerns information technology architectures for collaborative work and more particularly a method for process management in a collaborative service-oriented workshop.
Optimization of the study and design phases for objects such as vehicles for the purpose of reducing the development costs and time generally necessitates the employment of a specific information technology environment.
For example, the aerodynamic study of an aircraft involves numerous specialists working on different aspects of the same data, which aspects may or may not be related to one another. These specialists generally use different information technology tools as well as different machines for execution of the processes being employed. In addition, these specialists may be situated at different geographic locations.
It is therefore proving advantageous to employ an environment based on an open architecture that permits sharing of data and information technology resources, especially calculating resources. Preferably, such an environment should be adapted to a range of heterogeneous machines and operating systems.
It is also advantageous to use an interface that it makes it possible to access separate and different existing tools. Such a common interface should be adapted in particular to manage data that have to be exchanged between these tools as well as to permit easy selection of and access to the data.
In addition, the environment preferably should permit easy adaptation to future needs, such as integration of new tools, management of new types of data and production of new types of results.
Furthermore, there exists a need for data traceability in order to determine the origin of the produced data as well as their life cycle during the different modifications and uses in calculation or other processes.
To some extent, these problems are solved independently of one another.
For example, there exist software applications such as SynfiniWay, developed by the Fujitsu Corporation (SynfiniWay and Fujitsu are trademarks), that permit optimization of the execution of tasks in a heterogeneous environment. The SynfiniWay application makes it possible in particular to virtualize the global resources and to present the applications in the form of services linked by data sequences and dependences in order to automate the information technology processes.
Furthermore, there exist script languages such as Python and Java (Python and Java are trademarks) that make it possible to automate certain tasks and to call up existing tools. Python is a high-level, interpreted and object-oriented programming language. It may be used in numerous contexts and be adapted to numerous uses by means of specialized libraries.
For its part, data traceability is generally determined by the processes that led to the data. For example, in the applications of PDM type (initials for Product Data Management in English terminology), the user must follow predetermined processes without being able to deviate from them. The origin of a datum is therefore determined by the process that made it possible to obtain the datum.
However, a centralized and optimized environment does not exist for the study and design of systems in a heterogeneous open collaborative environment.